What if consciousness is not something we simply think about, but something we experience every day?
Most of us recognize consciousness as awareness—the quiet observer behind our thoughts, emotions, and experiences. Yet throughout my work with children and families, I have become increasingly fascinated by another question:
How does consciousness communicate with us?
Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung believed that the psyche naturally expresses itself through symbols, images, dreams, myths, and imagination. Rather than speaking in words alone, the deeper mind speaks a symbolic language—a language that has been shared across cultures and throughout history. This perspective has profoundly shaped my work.
For more than twenty-five years, I have guided children through imagery experiences that invite them to meet courageous animals, peaceful gardens, protective mountains, wise guides, healing light, and safe places within themselves. Again and again, I have witnessed something remarkable. Children who struggle to explain their fears can often transform them through an image. Before they possess the vocabulary to describe anxiety, they possess the imagination to reshape it.
Perhaps imagination is not simply fantasy.
Perhaps it is one of the ways our subconscious becomes visible.
Long before we understand ourselves intellectually, our dreams are weaving stories filled with landscapes, animals, bridges, rivers, journeys, and mysterious companions. Across centuries and cultures, these images have appeared with astonishing consistency, suggesting that beneath our individual lives lies a shared reservoir of human wisdom—a collective unconscious that connects us all.
Creativity opens another doorway into this invisible world.
When a child paints without worrying about perfection, sculpts with clay, invents stories, dances freely, or creates imaginary worlds, something extraordinary unfolds. Creative expression often bypasses the inner critic and allows deeper feelings, insights, and strengths to emerge naturally. Healing is not always found
through analysis. Sometimes it arrives through creation.
The stories we tell ourselves also become powerful expressions of consciousness. Every child carries an inner narrative: “I’m brave.” “I’m not good enough.” “I can figure this out.” “I’m alone.”
Healing stories gently reshape these narratives. They invite children to imagine themselves not as victims of fear, but as explorers, creators, problem-solvers, and heroes discovering strengths they didn’t know they possessed. As the story changes, the child’s relationship with themselves begins to change as well.
Over the years, I have come to believe that children remain naturally connected to this symbolic world in ways adults often forget. They move effortlessly between imagination and reality. They speak to stuffed animals, invent magical kingdoms, and find wisdom in butterflies, clouds, forests, and stars. Rather than dismissing these experiences as childish fantasy, we might ask whether they reveal something essential about how human beings grow, heal, and make meaning.
A young child preparing for surgery quietly closed her eyes and told me she was going to visit her “special place.” She imagined herself floating on a cloud while a wise dolphin swam beside her. Her breathing slowed. Her muscles softened. Her fear gave way to curiosity. Watching her, I was reminded that before children learn theories of healing, they often know instinctively how to find it within themselves.
Another example worth noting is about a nine year old boy with hyperactivity and attention deficit. When asked to imagine standing tall as a mighty oak tree, he immediately went from pretending to be the tree to expressing feeling strong, being very still and having a massive roots deep in the ground. The tree represents the qualities of strength and stability, he longs to experience internally. He was able to slow down and as he did his physiology shifted.
What if the imagination is not an escape from reality, but one of the mind’s oldest healing capacities?
Perhaps consciousness is continually expressing itself through symbols, imagination, dreams, creativity, and story, quietly inviting us into a deeper relationship with ourselves.
As adults, our task may not be to teach children how to imagine. It may be to protect the remarkable inner worlds they already possess. For within those inner landscapes lies an extraordinary capacity for resilience,
healing, creativity, and wisdom—a living reminder that some of life’s deepest truths cannot always be explained, but they can be experienced. If your child is struggling emotionally, I’d love to help.
REQUEST A CALL : To Take my complimentary Head & Heart Anxiety ReSet session. start at high stress of 9 end at 2- discover anew way to help your child move from struggle to greater confidence. www.drroxannedaleo.com
About Dr. Roxanne Daleo
Inspired by her study of cross-cultural healing practices, Dr. Daleo believes it is possible to weave the ways of ancient people into the fabric of modern life in an effort to help the young claim this wisdom as an essential part of who they are. The most relevant and timeless aspect of ancient practices is the sincere understanding of the interconnectedness of all living things. It is a knowing that everything that is in us is in the atmosphere we breath- the receptacle from which we draw our life energies that nourish and sustain us.
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